Haden: NCAA decision on Miami 'bolsters' USC's gripe

Oct. 22, 2013
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USC athletics director Pat Haden has complained in the past that the Trojans in 2010 received NCAA penalties that were too harsh, and he reiterated the point on Tuesday after Miami drew lighter sanctions. / Kelvin Kuo, USA TODAY Sports

by Brent Schrotenboer, USA TODAY Sports

by Brent Schrotenboer, USA TODAY Sports

The University of Miami football program was guilty of more widespread cheating than was found at the University of Southern California in 2010, according to the breadth of their respective NCAA reports. But Miami drew a much lighter sentence Tuesday than USC, again prompting complaints of inconsistent rules enforcement by the governing body of college sports.

"We have always felt that our penalties were too harsh," USC Athletic Director Pat Haden said in a statement Tuesday. "This decision (on Miami) only bolsters that view. Beyond that, we have no further comment."

Asked about the differences in punishment, the NCAA had an answer â?? sort of.

"We don't do a great deal of comparative analysis," said Britton Banowsky, chairman of the NCAA's infractions committee.

Instead, he offered two clues: He said Miami's cooperation with NCAA investigators was "commendable" and that the school softened the blow by moving in advance to self-impose harsh penalties, including a two-year ban from postseason play and other recruiting visit restrictions.

Miami's effort to pay the price before the bill came due likely saved it from more severe sanctions.

On Tuesday, the NCAA announced relatively minor additional penalties -- Miami also will be docked three football scholarships per year for three years and be placed on three years of probation. No special limits were placed on the number of new recruits Miami could sign to scholarships can per year, which is capped for all schools at 25.

By comparison, the NCAA hit USC so hard with penalties that the Trojans are still trying to recover. They were stripped of their 2004 national title and slammed with 30 scholarship reductions, a two-year bowl ban, four years of probation and a limit of signing only 15 new recruits per year for three years, 10 under the normal annual limit.

In the Miami case, there were 18 allegations with 79 sub-issues involving several student-athletes and spanning more than a decade. Multiple football coaches were found to be aware of the cheating but not reporting it. Some coaches also provided the NCAA with false information. In the end, the NCAA's infractions report on Miami was 102 pages, much of it focused on money and gifts to players from booster Nevin Shapiro. The NCAA's infractions report on USC was 67 pages.

But that's not always a predictor of penalties, an expert said.

NCAA rules enforcement "is always inconsistent, arbitrary and capricious," said David Ridpath, a frequent NCAA critic and president-elect of the Drake Group, which seeks reform in college athletics. "Miami had a couple things going for it: It cooperated better than USC and the NCAA screwed up publicly. They were not going to bring the hammer down too much, but they wanted to use a velvet hammer. The self-imposed sanctions were significant, too."

Banowsky stressed that each case is unique and cautioned against comparing punishments between schools.

Try telling that to USC, which has seen several football programs receive lighter punishments since 2011 despite committing an array of similar sins. In 2011 and 2012, the NCAA found that Ohio State and North Carolina had multiple players receiving a combined $45,000 in impermissible benefits. As a result, the NCAA slapped those two schools with 24 combined scholarship reductions and a one-year bowl ban for each.

Banowsky also pointed out that different cases are decided by different infractions committees, which are composed of several officials from various schools and conferences sitting in judgment of the school under investigation.

"Each committee is a different group of people," said Banowsky, commissioner of Conference USA.

In 2010, the chairman of the NCAA infractions committee was Paul Dee, the former Miami athletic director under whose watch many of Miami's infractions took place. When he announced USC's sanctions in 2010, Dee infamously justified USC's harsh sanctions by saying that "high-profile players demand high-profile compliance."

Some thought those words would come home to roost for Miami, but the Hurricanes escaped long-term ramifications.

USC's penalties substantially weakened the Trojans' roster and undoubtedly contributed to the recent firing of head coach Lane Kiffin. From the NCAA's standpoint, USC looked the other way despite obvious signs of cheating, including not adequately checking how Bush was able to purchase a 1996 Chevrolet Impala with new wheel rims during his sophomore season in 2004. USC also self-imposed penalties, but only in women's tennis and men's basketball, which included a post-season ban for 2010 and a one-scholarship reduction for two seasons.

"The institution never undertook the follow-up necessary to obtain complete information regarding the vehicle," the NCAA report said.

The defiance of Haden's predecessor, Mike Garrett, didn't help matters for the Trojans, either.

When the NCAA penalties came out, he called it "nothing but a lot of envy." The NCAA's report on USC in 2010 still said the school "met its obligation" in cooperating with investigators, just not enough to mitigate its punishment.

"USC struck me - especially Garrett - as holier than thou," Ridpath said. "Not that the system is fair, but from my vantage point USC was their own worst enemy."

Garrett, now the athletic director at Langston University in Oklahoma, deferred comment Tuesday to USC when contacted by USA TODAY Sports.

The NCAA's own investigative shortcomings also seemed to benefit Miami. The NCAA admitted to missteps in February after getting caught trying to obtain evidence for its case through Shapiro's bankruptcy proceeding. NCAA President Mark Emmert condemned the move and said any evidence obtained improperly would not be used in the case.

"When determining the facts of the case and appropriate penalties, the committee only considered information obtained appropriately during the investigative process and presented at the hearing," the NCAA said in a statement Tuesday.

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